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WSOP Spoilt at the Last Fence

Tuesday, November 10th, 2009

I’ve been keeping up WSOP 2009, mainly through the ESPN broadcasts. Throughout I’ve been avoiding 2p2 and other sites in case I catch glimpse of a spoiler.

So it’s now the final table and I’m wondering when the last broadcast is coming out. I know it’s been played so got to be careful. I do a quick Google and the obvious happens. I now know who won and who came 2nd and 4th :-( ESPN broadcast later today I believe.

Oh well. Maybe one day it’ll be broadcast live somewhere…

Slow Month

Wednesday, October 21st, 2009

Not a lot of poker going on at the moment – my plate seems to be crammed with lots of other things that are getting in the way.

Admittedly there’s not much incentive though – my plans to move up when my account reached $250 has failed miserably since rather than increasing my $$$ I seem to be continually decreasing it. At the point I made that BR decision I was at $230 and it made plenty of sense to grind out that extra $20.

Instead it’s gone the other way and I’m down to $200. I made the mistake of reading one of those monthly results threads on 2p2, and naturally the only people showing their graphs were those who were happily climbing up. Depressing that my only increases to the BR have been through bonuses and rake, and my dismal play has now eroded even those gains.

Oh well. Need to play through this as they say. The difficult thing is knowing whether this is my fault or just variance. Or were my previous winning sessions my fault or just variance? I keep going back to PokerTracker to try and spot the problems, and it’s really hard to know just what’s going wrong. I suspect I should play more weakly (I think I’m tight enough), but it just feels so wrong!

Update: There’s a thread in the gossip section of 2p2 talking about who has the most meteoric rise in poker (a bit premature perhaps). A load of nits are going on about meteors not rising, which is the typical moron nittitude of many 2p2′ers, but it has made me realise my moniker is associated with things that crash and burn (well, burn and crash). Hmmm, don’t really have much to disagree with though…

EuroRounders

Friday, September 18th, 2009

This has been posted all over the place, so I guess I can too (free content!) :-)

If you’ve seen Rounders it’s very funny;

EuroRounders

Michel (voiceover): “If you can’t find the boorish American hold’em player at the table within half an hour, you are the boorish American hold’em player.”

—–

TITLE/CREDITS. This entire movie is in black and white, with subtitles.

—–

Michel (voiceover): “This game is really scummy, and well above what I can afford to play. My entire bankroll is riding on this one session going well. This is Teddy CIA’s place, where they only play Pot Limit Omaha, the most sophisticated game in Europe.”

- Michel knocks on the window -

Teddy CIA: “You want poker, or whore?”

Michel: “Poker. Give me three stacks of high, elitist society.”

—–

Michel: “I raise.”

Teddy CIA: “It’s a position raise. I call.”

- The flop comes 5-7-A, with two diamonds -

Michel: “I bet the pot.”

Teddy CIA: “I raise the pot.”

Michel: “I reraise the pot.”

Teddy CIA: “I reraise the pot.”

Michel: “Pot.”

Teddy CIA: “Pot.”

Michel: “Pot.”

Teddy CIA: “Pot.”

Michel: “Pot.”

Teddy CIA: “Pot.”

Michel (voiceover): “I sit back and think. I have three aces – the best possible hand. I want him to think I’m debating a call, but really I’m just thinking about Monte Carlo, and whatever the **** is in Monte Carlo.”

Michel: *shrugs* “Okay, well, I re-pot it, I’m all in, because I don’t think you have a pair.” *winks at the camera*

Teddy CIA: “Who are you winking at? It doesn’t matter, I call.”

Michel (voiceover): “I know before he even says it.”

Teddy CIA: “I have 8-6-4-3 with two diamonds, for a wrap straight draw and a flush draw, which is a favorite over your top set.”

- Turn is a King. River is a 2 which gives Teddy CIA an ace-to-five straight for the win. -

- Michel sits there, shell-shocked. -

Joey Croissant: “Come on, I’ll get you a whore.”

—–

Michel (voiceover): “Well, that sucked. Since then, I’ve sworn off of poker and made my living as a roadside prostitute for boorish American tourists. Hopefully, I can pay my way through law school that way. I can always find games, though. I could turn this truck onto the road and be at the Taj in 19 and a half hours.”

—–

Michel (voiceover): “I’m here to pick my friend Worm up from prison.”

- Worm walks out of prison -

Michel: “Worm! It’s wonderful to see you!”

- They kiss each other passionately on the mouth -

Michel: “How was prison?”

Worm: “I was brutally sodomized on a regular basis.”

—–

Michel: “Look…Croissant, I never told you this, but about a year ago, I was playing poker at the Casino des Atlantes, and Marcel Luske walks in. He sits down at the 50/100 pot limit game. And, I mean, the whole place stops, right? Just watching this guy play. After a while there isn’t a retarded European gambling game going, because everybody’s just, you know, watching this guy.”

- Joey Croissant nods -

Michel: “So you know what I did? I sat down.”

Joey Croissant: “No way, you need at least 300,000 euros to sit down at a game like that. Such bad financial management is typical of a boorish American!”

- Joey Croissant and Michel laugh for twenty-six minutes -

Michel: “Right, okay, but seriously, I played for an hour, doing nothing but folding. Then I won a huge pot.”

Joey Croissant: “Aces? Kings? Ace-King doublesuited? Suited aces? High connectors? Middle doublesuited connectors? Two big pair?”

Michel: “Rags.”

Joey Croissant: “That’s probably fine too, you’re only like a 48/52 dog.”

Michel: “I raised. And he came over the top of me, like I was a boorish American. I re-popped it. He potted it again. I think for like two seconds and then I re-pot it.”

Joey Croissant: “Jesus ****ing Christ, how much money did you have?”

Michel: “After I bet I would quietly slide my chips back toward my stack, nobody noticed. Anyway, he thinks for a while, looks at me, checks his cards again, and he mucks. I take it down. And then he looks at me and says, ‘I have to know. Did you have it?’ And I said, ‘I’m sorry Marcel, I can’t remember.’”

Joey Croissant: “Face!”

Michel: “I know, totally. Anyway, based on that one hand, I felt confident gambling for all the money I had, at one time.”

—–

Law Professor: “I am a Jew.”

Michel: “I hate you.”

—–

Teddy CIA: “We play, heads up, Pot Limit Omaha, 25 and 50 blinds, until one of us has it all?”

Michel: “Out of sheer curiosity, you realize you’re giving up like boat loads of equity by agreeing to gamble for money that’s effectively yours anyway, right? That you could just not let me play, and then kill me and take what I have?”

Teddy CIA: “I know, but I am a boorish American!”

- Michel and Teddy CIA laugh for seventy-two minutes -

—–

Michel (voiceover): “I pick up Ace-Ace-Jack-Ten doublesuited.”

Michel: “I raise the pot.”

Teddy CIA: “Very aggressive. But, I reraise the pot.”

Michael (voiceover): “He’s representing Ace-Ace-King-King doublesuited, the only hand better than mine. I can’t call, and give him a chance to catch. I can only fold…if I believe him.”

Michel: “I reraise, I’m all in.”

Teddy CIA: “Take it down.”

—–

- The flop reads 10-9-5, with two spades -

Michel: “Pot.”

Teddy CIA: “Pot.”

Michel: “Pot.”

Teddy CIA: “Pot.”

Michel: “Pot.”

Teddy CIA: “Pot.”

Michel: “Pot. I’m all in.”

Teddy CIA: “Alright, I call. What do you have?”

Michel: “Jack high flush draw and middle set.”

Teddy CIA: “Wrap, with a king high flush draw.”

Michel: “Boy, I sure hope my 5:4 edge holds up, otherwise I am going to die.”

- Turn is an off-suit 5, giving Michel an unbeatable hand. But the river is the ace of spades anyway, because it’s always the ****ing ace of spades. -

Teddy CIA: “He beat me. Pay that man his money. His silly, silly-looking European money.”

—–

Cab Driver: “Where are you off to?”

Michel: “Monte Carlo.”

Cab Driver: “Good luck.”

Michel: “Shut the **** up.”

—–

FIN

Fingers Crossed For Rakeback

Tuesday, August 25th, 2009

I signed up with Full Tilt about a year ago, and at that time I had no idea about rakeback. I think I just saw a referral code on some site and used that – it was only later I realised what I’d done, and it put a big dampener on playing there. I slowly bust my roll and then redeposited elsewhere (Titan I think, just to get the Stox 12 month deal).

Anyway, a while ago I saw posts on 2p2 that it was possible to write to FT and ask to be put on a Rakeback program, so of course I did immediately. FT wrote back to say that the affiliate I’d signed up with offered rakeback and I should ask them about it.

They didn’t tell me who the affiliate was though. So I wrote again asking who they were. FT said they couldn’t tell me due to their privacy policy(!?!). I tried a couple more times, but only had the same response so gave up.

But, I just spotted something on a forum – if you ask for the code you signed up with, they’ll tell you! So I asked, and they did! So bizarre, you gotta know the rules to know the rules…

So, quick google later I’ve found out who my affiliate is, and I’ve written to them to see if I can get rakeback. Hopefully I can – it’s in their interest too surely since I’m not playing on FT without the rakeback. Fingers crossed…

Update: Yes – It’s been confirmed, I can get rakeback!!! Whoohoo!

That makes so much difference, I had not been playing on FT at all purely for that reason. Now I can cover up all my bad play with rakeback payments :-)

Even better, they’re going to pay me all the rakeback I should have got over 2008 – so effectively it’s as if I’ve had rakeback all along! Total result – I cannot type enough exclamation marks here to do it justice!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hand Analysis

Monday, July 27th, 2009

Here’s a good post I found in the 2p2 archives where some guy gives 3 situations, and then gives some really in depth analysis;

BobbyFito’s quiz

It’s kinda long, so here’s a shortcut to his answers.

I found it after reading about combinatrics, which I’m still not understanding properly, but possibly it’s worth applying a few brain cells…

Sudden Burst of Good Stuff on 2Plus2

Thursday, June 18th, 2009

I was wondering if there was a good way of figuring out how many hands it took before you could rely on a villains stat, and so asked it on 2p2. I didn’t expect too much of a response really, and most of the replies were what I expected (ie lame), but a couple pointed out some other posts that were really good.

The first thing I found out was that the micro full ring section of the forum had been having ‘concept of the week’ posts, which look pretty good. Since I play 6max I’ve never really bothered looking there. The other week there had been one on getting the most out of PT/HEM, and this had some excellent posts by mpethybridge.

This then lead to a really nice archived post which mathematically showed how only 40 hands was needed to feel confident on VP$IP (or at one point, he shows how just 6 hands can be enough!). Both this one and mpethybridge’s posts also gave some good insights into 3bet% stats too (apparently mpethybridge has a ‘well’ post somewhere, so I’ll try and hunt that down).

So that was all pretty good – there’s some great stuff on that forum, but most of it’s really buried. The list of links they have in the stickies doesn’t do it justice really…

Update: Going through the Concept of the Week posts (index here) I came onto this gem. In particular the Sun Tzu quotes were really cool. I’d like to use one as a slogan on this blog, but that would be too corny…

Surprising Fault with PokerTracker

Sunday, May 31st, 2009

I can’t start PokerTracker, and looking at 2p2 forums it looks like no-one else can either. Their servers are all down, and apparently PT verifies its license on startup.

That was a bit of a shock. I’m not worried about playing without the benefit of the HUD, but it’s not so great that I’ve a product that will only be useful while PokerTracker.com is in business.

V annoying, especially as normally I’ve only good things to say about PT3 (so many people prefer HEM, but I suspect they’ve not tried PT3 – comparisons with PT2 definitely preferred HEM, but I think the latest PT definitely covers all the previous deficiencies plus much more).

Update: Did most of my work, so played a bit of poker. Almost wish I hadn’t (or at very least, should have stopped while ahead);

31may09

There were one or two bad beats in that fall (my set beat by a pair of queens that made a straight on the river!), but I can’t blame variance really – there were enough hands that I played badly to blame myself for the loss. One that stands out the most was AJo in the big blind – I 3bet the button’s raise, he reraised then I shoved – not sure that was a good move really (maybe it’s ok with suited? Perhaps not even then?).


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